There can no longer be any debate over the question of whether the US and the UK are descending into a new era of barbarism under the dominant right-wing political class in each country. As I keep telling you, the political variant of free market neoliberalism is now openly flexing its authoritarianism and establishing it as the norm. In the United States the Know-Nothing has crossed the line of sane political discourse and is implementing policies that have been described as Hitlerian and by religious leaders as 'pure evil'. His admiration for tyrants and dictators is now expressed openly and he is waging war against all of the traditional institutions of American democracy with his particular venom directed at any sector of the media that has the temerity to challenge him or seek to hold him to account. His capacity for bare-faced lying knows no bounds and he is now openly persecuting children and immigrants whilst dehumanising them through openly fascist style public policy. What sane and rational person approves of locking children in steel cages with aluminium sheets for cover? This only demonstrates that significant sections of the American population and their political representatives are neither sane nor rational as it is obvious that there are a significant amount of personnel quite happy to implement such evil on the Know-Nothing's behalf and others to defend it. If I were an American I would be genuinely scared.
In this sorry nation, the ruling elite have completely lost sight of the meaning and purpose of politics and are in utter contempt of democracy (indeed they are doing their best to kill it off), and of the electorate. Their contempt for the Scots is now open and evident. We actually have the spectacle of the government refusing to give Parliament any input into the Brexit process. With respect to Brexit, the government could not have made their contempt for Scotland any more evident when they set aside a miserable fifteen minutes for a debate on Scotland's fate under the Brexit proposals and allowed the entire fifteen minutes to be taken up by a government minister thus ensuring that not one Scottish MP, not even a Scottish Tory MP, had any input into the decision making process determining Scotland's economic, social and political future. In this process the Tories have the full support of Labour in denying, not only the SNP, but their own Scottish Labour MPs, any input into the debate as both the Tories and Labour sent a clear signal that they are not prepared to defend Scotland, its electorate, or its principal institutions, from the Tories assault on the Scottish Parliament and the devolution settlement. Westminster has now become a danger to the democratic process, and in their own quiet way, although they do not indulge in the hyperbole of the Know-Nothing, they are pursuing an authoritarian agenda just as surely as he is and their attacks on those they perceive as enemies of the people are just as sinister, and remember, the Tories have already branded the judiciary as the enemies of the people because they upheld the law. Both US and British governments have signalled that they have no intention of allowing themselves to be constrained, regulated, or to be required to adhere to traditional norms and values in pursuit of their respective goals and agendas. Their political free market is now as dangerous as their economic and just as destructive. It is essential that we have a national debate to establish some first principles and return to the foundations of political philosophy. We are living in deeply unjust times and as Adam Smith warned us,
"Society, however, cannot subsist among those who are at all times ready to hurt and injure one another. The moment that injury begins, the moment that mutual resentment and animosity take place, all the bands of it are broke asunder, and the different members of which it consisted are, as it were, dissipated and scattered abroad by the violence and opposition of their discordant affections..... the prevalence of injustice must utterly destroy it."
Remember, government is derivative and derives from a purpose, and the whole purpose of government is to provide a stable, peaceful, and ordered society that will enable people to pursue their own interests. Smith here is talking about society and we must never lose sight of the empirical reality that both government and the state are part of society, not the other way round. I hope people will begin to understand now when I write about the significance of Thatcher's mantra that there is no such thing as society. She wanted to set both government and the state above and separate from society, so that neither government or the state could be held accountable to a wider society that of course does not exist. That is why I persistently tell you that her agenda was sinister and that her purpose was quite evil. This ideological construct is now regarded as holy writ by free marketeers and explains much about the approach of the Tories and Know-Nothing.
The purpose of government is not to make people good or to preach to them. Government is therefore functional and must not be ideological. Its function is the preservation of peace and order whilst allowing people as much freedom to pursue their own interests as is possible without harming any others. The state then, those institutions that governments utilise for their own ideological ends, only exists for the peace, well-being and security of its members. It is not the tool or handmaiden of ideologically motivated politicians or parties. That however is what it has become and this must stop.
This post is getting too big but I wish to make the point that if you believe in democracy and representative government, then ultimate power must always reside with the people. The people of any nation possess natural rights that exist prior to government, and any exercise of state power that threatens such rights is by definition illegitimate. Power is therefore constrained by such moral rights and laws and subject to both constitutional and traditional conventions that have existed historically, and is why both our governments refuse to recognise or honour such political necessities, as they are fundamental constraints on their behaviour. In addition, in a representative democracy, the executive must always be subordinate to the legislature. In both the UK and the USA the opposite is the case and is one of the principal reasons we are losing our democratic rights and controls. You have been warned, because too many of you seem to be quite complacent about the whole thing.
Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat
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